


Undivided

by 221b_hound



Series: Unkissed [28]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Blackmail, Charles Augustus Milverton's next move, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Past Drug Use, Past Sexual Assault, Past extremely dubious consent, Protective John, Sherlock's Past, Unconditional Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-29
Updated: 2015-01-29
Packaged: 2018-03-09 12:45:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3250205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Milverton’s next move is to scrape up something ugly from Sherlock’s past and send it to John - a move he expects to destroy them.</p><p>Some things you can’t unsee. Some things you can’t unknow or unfeel. But you can do what you can to try to make them right, and you can make sure the one you love knows that even when they’re no longer with you, you’ll defend them with everything you have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Undivided

**Author's Note:**

> I have never before written a story with a rape/non-con/dub-con tag. The tags are important and I want to be very clear about their use here, because I don't want anyone caught by nasty surprise (especially as you may not expect those things in this universe). 
> 
> The following note contains some spoilers.
> 
> The incident Milverton uses, from Sherlock's past, is not described in graphic detail, but elements of its aftermath, particularly the emotional toll, is. Sherlock maintains that he gave consent, but it was not what John (or I) consider informed consent. Certainly Sherlock discovers he still has strong reactions to what happened, and to the fact that John has learned of it. 
> 
> I found it difficult to write and some of you may find it very difficult (or worse) to read, if you have survived anything like it. His attitude to what happened, and John's attitude, and the resolution of those feelings is very much in keeping with the Unkissed universe - unconditional love and healing - but I'm very aware that life isn't generally as clear-cut or as kind as this. 
> 
> I hope this leaves you informed enough to choose whether or not to continue. Take care of yourselves.

Sherlock was at the kitchen table, removing the last of his heavy disguise while John changed from his work clothes into track pants, vest and untied dressing gown. He kissed the top of Sherlock's head as he returned and then poked a finger into the wig of dark, straight hair that bristled on the table.

"It’s more elaborate than your usual. Is it enough?"

Sherlock removed the dentures, pulled the cotton padding from inside his cheeks and peeled the prosthetic from the skin of his cheeks and nose. Lastly, he dabbed out the contacts, which altered his eye colour from the changeable blue-grey that John adored to a nondescript brown, and placed them in the lens case.

"People don’t look that closely at tradesmen. Between all of this, the accent and the stoop, I’m confident of passing.” He stretched, and John heard the joints pop. “Fairly confident,” Sherlock amended.

John frowned and dropped into the seat opposite Sherlock's. "Do you have to...?"

"We've been over this."

John sighed. "I know.”

Sherlock placed a hand over John's clenched fist, on the table. "If there was another way, I'd take it."

"I hate you not having back-up."

"As it happens, I may have found an ally."

Before he could elaborate, Mrs Hudson yoo-hooed, tapped on the door and came in. "Mail for you today," she announced, dropping a dozen envelopes on the table between them. She saw their hands joined and stopped to pat John on the shoulder, then Sherlock. John smiled wanly at her.

"Everything will be all right," she said.

"There is no such guarantee," Sherlock said darkly, and Mrs Hudson's gentle touch on his shoulder became a sharp slap instead.

"Pessimism will get you nowhere, Sherlock."

Sherlock scowled. "If you have any methods of encouraging frightened people who are being blackmailed by an oily, vicious spider to brave the consequences of helping us, then, by all means, share your wisdom. The assistance won't be spurned, I assure you."

Mrs Hudson patted him again. "You'll find a way."

"So we keep saying." This time, Sherlock reached up to pat her hand in reassurance. "There may be progress. I’ll know more tomorrow."

"Of course there’s progress. You’re very clever." She nodded decisively. "I'm off then. Bridge. We're trying a new fourth now that I've sent Louise Aitkensen away with a flea in her ear." With that, she opened the fridge for her usual check, gave a little gasp of despair and shut it again. "Don't tell me!" she said, hurrying out, "I don't want to know!"

Sherlock raised an eyebrow at John as the door closed. "That would be...?"

"The leftover blue cheese and polenta with spinach I picked up from Angelo's two days ago." They both laughed. "We'll have it with salad for dinner," John added, "I'll just clear the mail." He had begun to slit open envelopes raggedly with his thumb. Sherlock, with a pointed look about this deplorable habit of John's, handed his husband the letter opener.

"Right," laughed John, taking the implement, "I'm making a mess of the clues in the bills from BT and the gas company."

"It's a good habit to develop for the non-standard mail, as you well kn... John?"

For John had slit open an A5 sized envelope. _Brown. Thick paper; expensive but quite common. Printed label. No return address. Postmarked W1. Posted yesterday._

John was staring at the photograph only partially removed from the envelope. His face had gone white, but was now flushing red. _Jaw tight. Muscle beside his mouth ticking. Eyes hard and focused on the image rather than looking away. Extremely still rather than shuffling and averting his gaze. Not embarrassed. Enraged._

"John."

John began to shove the photo back into the envelope, his eyes casting aside to the grate.

_He plans to burn it._

Sherlock placed a quelling hand on John's wrist. John looked at him, the rage unabated, but now tempered with something else. Sherlock knew that look. He'd seen a milder version of it at a medical conference, when John had threatened to break Victor Trevor's hand in several places.

_That was milder? What the hell is this?_

"Let me burn it," said John stiffly, "We don't have to play his game."

Milverton had sent it, then.

A spark of panic shot up Sherlock's spine. The photo might have been something that compromised John, but John's reaction was all wrong for that. Shame was not a component of this fierce fury. Had it related to Mrs Hudson or Harry, or anyone else they knew, John would have shown him almost immediately.

This photograph was about _Sherlock_.

Sherlock didn’t remember any compromising photographs of anything in his earlier life. But compromising _things_? Yes. He had done plenty of those. Things, he had assured himself, that would not matter to John. They hardly mattered to _him_ any more. They were past; another life. Another Sherlock Holmes, in many ways.

_What is in that photograph?_

He didn’t know what made him feel more ill. The prospect of seeing what it contained, or the prospect of never knowing.

"We said no secrets," said Sherlock.

John looked at him, and swallowed. His hands were clamped tight on the envelope. His eyes were full of rage and sorrow and a plea.

Sherlock held out his hand, and was quite pleased with how he stemmed the tremor before John could see it.

Reluctantly, John placed the envelope in his hand.

“Sherlock, I need you to know it’s all right. And… and I’ve already dealt with it. With _him_.” Pre-emptive reassurance.

Sherlock examined the envelope but it could tell him nothing more than the first glance had done. It had no particular scent. No other marks. A plain, brown, good quality envelope of the kind sold at stationery stores and postal agencies all over the country.

He squeezed the envelope slightly to make the opening bow, and shook out the photo, but only a centimetre. N _ot standard commercial photo stock of the kind once commonly used by chemists and one-hour photo services. Still common enough, though, among hobbyists and professionals. Developed in a private photographic studio, then. Not a photograph to be committed to outside eyes._

The nausea rose as Sherlock pinched the edge of the photograph between thumb and forefinger and withdrew it a quarter of the way out: only as far as John had done.

The image showed a slice of a room reflected in a mirror. A portion of window to the outside world showed a view of London rooftops with the Gherkin thrust up among them. Also in the reflection, a young woman sprawled on a bed like a rag doll. Naked. Her face seemed familiar, but from a long time ago. There was a lampshade, also familiar, but he couldn’t place it. _Where…?_   To one side was a blandly patterned sofa. _At least ten years out of style._

He knew that sofa. He knew that the legs of it were scratched. Fifteen distinct marks in the chrome…

The tremor in Sherlock’s hand could no longer be stilled. He didn’t dare look up at John, but did anyway, equally unable to avoid that steady gaze.

“It’s okay, sweetheart, it doesn’t matter to me,” said John, then grimaced. “Well, not _okay_ , obviously, but… I mean…. What he _did_ matters, but he’s…he can’t hurt you any more. But _we’re_ okay, baby. Listen to me, Sherlock, _we_ are fine, you and me.”

All the blood had drained from Sherlock’s face. He blinked at John, then down at the portion of this photograph. Afraid to remove it from the envelope. Unable to stop.

He withdrew the photograph fully and saw the evidence of the thing he’d done. The thing that had nearly destroyed him. He’d had no idea there’d been a photo taken of it. This… nadir of shame. This… this…

He clenched his fingers at the edges of the print to keep it steady and stared at it. Remembering things he wished he’d forgotten. He’d almost died trying to forget.

The dull room with its functional furniture and the smell of bleach and deodorizer.

The late afternoon warmth draining to cool evening and cold night. Hours and hours. Six, by the clock, later, but it had felt like days. Lifetimes.

The phone by the double bed and the call. “Bring the gear.” An ugly laugh. “A deal’s a deal, yes? I suppose they’ve earned it.”

The girl, dull-eyed, then later weeping, tied to the bed before asking, begging, _please, I’ll do it, I’ll do it. Whatever you say, only let me have the hit, please, I need it, I need…_

He’d wanted to despise her, except he _was_ her, and she, him. They’d both sold themselves to this.

Himself, naked, curled up on the floor, one hand over his head, the other wrapped around his own stomach, as though that would shield him from things already done.

In the photograph – colour, poor quality, yet revealing enough – the glistening of… of… on his back and his legs and between the cheeks of his arse, which had hurt, he remembered. He could see in the picture the dark flecks of blood on his thigh, because he hadn't been ready and the one who had... used him, didn't care that sensitive skin had torn. His younger self, not even 30, was curled up, making himself small. _That man's_ hand was on his thigh, fingers pressed in domineeringly, the dents inthe flesh white. (When the man let go, later, there were bruises. Hardly noticed what with the other thing, the forgetting thing; it was supposed to have made him forget and it bloody didn’t.)

 _That man_ in the foreground, captured only as a blurry fragment of a face. A tuft of salt-and-pepper hair. Puffy cheeks, prominent ear. A fraction of predatory, smug grin, gleeful brown eyes. Not obvious from that fragment of a face, the fact that the man was also naked.

(Sherlock remembered the birthmark on the man’s ribs, and an appendectomy scar, seen too close, too close. He remembered the carpet better. Had stared at it, counting threads, looking for patterns in the swirl, trying to identify previous inhabitants of this awful room by the scents and stains. He counted the scratches on the chrome legs of the sofa, over and over, and tried to determine what had caused them. Anything to keep from thinking about what was being done. The thing he’d agreed to do. He’d wished and wished and wished he had not agreed to do it sober. Being high might have made it endurable, but the deal had been this sacrifice now, and his drugs later. That had been the deal. Broke, desperate, he had agreed. He’d agreed to this.)

“Jesus. Fuck.” John’s voice breathed horror and rage into the awful silence at the table.

Sherlock made himself look up, over the top of the photograph, at John, staring at the back of the picture.

“I’m going to fucking kill Milverton,” said John, quietly, dangerously, like he meant it.

Sherlock did not want to turn the picture around to look, because he did not want John to see the picture.

_But he already has. He recognised it from three centimetres of it. He didn’t even take it out of the envelope._

Slowly – he would drop the thing if he wasn’t careful, and even if his observations said John had seen this already, he couldn’t bear to see John seeing it – Sherlock turned the photo face-down on the table.

On the back of it was a printed label. It read:

_He sold to others what he denies to you as his husband. Do you still believe in Sherlock Holmes?_

Sherlock dry-retched suddenly then his fingers convulsed, crushing those words and the photograph they were printed on in his two fists. He didn’t vomit, but it was a near thing.

He felt the pricking at his eyes. He felt the shame.

For a very brief moment, he wished the overdose he’d taken afterwards to wipe away the memory had actually killed him. He wished that Lestrade hadn’t found him in that dosshouse. He wished that nobody had saved him, so he wouldn’t have to open his eyes to see John looking at him, knowing about this thing.

 _John has already seen the picture. John said it was… not okay. Not what happened. But_ us _. **We** are okay. He said **we** are okay. _

“Sherlock. Sweetheart. Please. Look at me. It’s all right, baby. It’s going to be all right. Sweetpea. Please. Honeybee. Trust me.”

The words were only sounds to start with, but he heard them. All those sweet things that he wasn’t. All those sweet words John gave to him.

“I’m not…” he began, voice broken.

“You are. You are my sweetling. You are my beautiful boy. You’re my love and my light," John's voice was rough and tender and heartbroken and solid and certain as a mountain. "You, here with me now, _this_ is who you are. Right here. In front of me. My precious duckling. My own honeybee. Little firefly. You are all those things and more. Look at me, Sherlock. Sweetheart. Look at me.”

Sherlock, more terrified than he’d been in his entire life, opened his eyes, because he trusted that voice and the man opposite him with even the soiled, broken parts of himself.

John’s blue eyes were dewy bright and his smile was warm, though crinkled with distress. “That’s my sweetpea. Look at me. Read me. Deduce me, baby, you know I can’t lie to you. I never want to, and I can’t.  I love you. I love you. And Eastmund can’t hurt you again, I promise you. He can’t hurt anybody ever again.”

Sherlock gasped in air but couldn’t speak. He thought perhaps he might never want to speak again. But he read John, like John asked, even though he didn’t need to. If there was one constant in an inconstant world, it was that John Watson Loved Sherlock Holmes. (And the other constant of course, that Sherlock Holmes Loved, _oh how he loved_ , John Watson.)

“He didn’t… that is…” Sherlock spoke through clenched teeth. They’d promised each other truth, but it was hard to say. “I consented.”

“Oh, god, Sherlock. Sweetheart. You looked like you want to crawl out of your own skin, so I know whatever you said at the time, you didn’t like it and you didn’t want it. You were an addict, desperate for a hit and maybe you _consented_ , in exchange for whatever he gave you, but we don’t need to talk right now about how that fits on the dubious fucking consent scale.” John realised his tone had grown harsh and he took a breath to calm himself, as much as he could. “Listen to me. Fucking Sir Colin Eastmund was a turd of a man, and he’s done with.”

Sherlock’s brow furrowed. _Done with? As in…_ “He’s dead?”

John nodded sharply. “As a _doornail_. I didn’t pull the trigger myself, but I may as well have done. I’m responsible for it. And I’m not sorry in the slightest.” He held out his hands to Sherlock. “Can I touch you, sweetheart? Is it okay? It’s all right if you don’t want me to. Anything you want or don’t want is okay. I love you. You know that I love you.”

“Yes,” Sherlock croaked out, “I know.”

“Can I touch you, sweetheart?” John’s hands hovered over Sherlock’s, clenched still on the photograph, “You can say no. You can always say no to me. It’s okay.”

“I…” Sherlock took a deep breath and made his fingers uncurl from the picture. “Yes. John. Yes, John. Please. Please.”

John pressed his hands over Sherlock’s. He curved his fingers over to Sherlock’s palms, and then lifted Sherlock’s hands so he could kiss them, one palm, then the other. Back to the first, to kiss both palm and wrist. Left hand, right. Soft and gentle and undemanding, but full of meaning.

“I love you,” John said, “Don’t you ever forget that. I love you.”

“John,” said Sherlock, and John paused to look at him, nothing but concern in his eyes. “Please, John. I want...   Could you…?” Ridiculous. He knew how to ask for these things now. “Hold me.”

Almost before he finished speaking, John was up, was next to him, folding him in an embrace, kissing his hair. Sherlock wrapped his arms around John’s waist and pressed his face into the cotton vest and the scent of John’s clothes and his body. He held tight to the safety of John holding him, and inhaled that scent until he could breathe again. Until his brain could work again.

For now, though, he held to John and he breathed. And John kissed his hair and gently rubbed his hands over Sherlock’s arms and back. Over his shoulders and hands. He murmured all the sweet names he knew. Ridiculous. So ridiculous. John had seen the picture. John knew what Sherlock was. And yet, John called him sweetheart and kitten and honeybee. John had seen that picture before and yet; he had known about Eastmund, and yet; and always, he gave Sherlock those sweet names.

“When did you see that picture?” he asked at last, and it took all his strength to keep his voice steady.

“A long time ago. Back when you were dead.”

“I didn’t know it had been taken,” Sherlock said, and he frowned. “Why would someone send it to you when everyone thought I was dead.”

John rubbed his cheek against Sherlock’s hair. “I got a lot of shitty comments on the blog after… after it happened. All the news reports. A lot of people couldn’t bloody wait to crow about your death and you being a _fake_ , as though they had the first clue about who you were. And the more I defended you, the crueller they got. A few people sent letters to Baker Street. The photo was one of the early ones, before I just burnt them on arrival. Just the picture with a note on the back calling you… doesn’t matter. Typical trolling. You know the sort of thing.”

Sherlock knew John lied to spare him. Or perhaps to spare himself from having to say those names Eastmund would have written on the photograph. Sherlock remembered very clearly the names that man gave him. 

 _Frigid whore. Greedy cockslut. Desperate junky fuckbunny_. 

Sherlock didn't want to hear those words out of John’s mouth and was grateful for his reticence.

“I’ll tell you about what I did, if you want me to, but first… Sherlock, please. Let me burn the photo now.”

Sherlock nodded and reached for the crumpled picture, but John snatched it away before Sherlock’s fingers even brushed it.

“Touching it won't make me any dirtier, John,” he said softly. 

The expression on John’s face was a complicated thing. Shock was uppermost, and then a kind of outrage. Then sorrow. Then a stern kindness. He touched Sherlock’s face.

“You’re not dirty.”

“I allowed…”

“No. Look. Sherlock, I learned some things about your past when we were first in Baker Street. Greg told me some things later, in that year you were dead. About your overdose. And.. I'm a doctor. I know what addiction can entail. I know it can be… complex. Cause and effect. Choice and circumstance. Where responsibility sits. But the only thing about that photograph that truly horrifies me is what he did to you. How distressed you clearly are. I don’t know what you think you agreed to, what kind of consent you believe you gave, but what happened there was not the result of informed consent. That’s assault. That’s someone else’s choice to hurt you.”

John had scrunched the photo anew into a creased ball. “This photo,” he said, clenching it tighter in his fist, “Says much more about the slimy fuck who did those things and took that selfie and then sent it to me, thinking it would change how I feel about you, than it ever could about _you_.”

"You don't think... it's what made me...what I am? About sex."

"No," said John gently, "I think who you are made what you endured a very particular kind of hell."

Sherlock swallowed. “I overdosed afterwards,” he confessed, “I wanted to delete it and it wouldn’t stay deleted. When I didn’t die, I decided to get clean. So it would never happen again.”

John pressed a kiss to Sherlock’s brow. “And it won’t.” He took Sherlock’s hand and they walked together to the grate. John threw the ball of thick paper on top of the cold ashes - they had lit a large fire after Milverton's disgusting visit, to sterilise even the memory of it - while Sherlock took the matches from beside the skull. Sherlock lit a match and set it to the evidence of the empty, awful darkness his life had once been. When the photo didn’t all burn at once, he poked at it with his fingers and blew on it to revive the fire.

He took his sooty fingers away and stared at them, until John took his hand and very deliberately wiped it clean, on his dressing gown first, then by sucking at the black marks on those fingers. Sherlock watched him do it, but what he next asked was:

“Why didn't you ever tell me, after I returned?”

“To be honest, I think I tried to delete it too. It all happened eight or nine months before you came back, and we had... other issues right then. And after... You've never liked talking about that period in your life. What would have been the purpose? It was past, the bastard was dead and I... I didn't think you'd like that I knew. I didn’t want you to be more hurt than you had already been.” John frowned. “Perhaps I should have told you. I’m sorry.”

“No. It’s all right. You’re right. I wouldn’t have been happy that you’d seen it. Seen… me. Then.” Sherlock knew he would have feared John’s response, in those early days. And yet, here was John, proving once more that he would not turn from Sherlock, no matter the provocation.

Sherlock took John’s hand. “Would you…?” He leaned his forehead against John’s. “It seems foolish, but I would very much like to… bathe.”

“Of course, honeybee.”

Sherlock let John lead him to the bathroom, where John pushed the plug into the tub and started the water running. Sherlock unbuttoned his shirt as John, too, undressed.

Sherlock folded shirt, then trousers, and draped them over the washbasket. In only his underpants, he tilted his head to look at John, naked, testing the heat of the water and swishing bubbles around. John lowered himself into the tub and smiled softly at Sherlock. Invitation but also acceptance. If Sherlock changed his mind now, it would still be all right.

Sherlock took off his underwear and eased himself into the hot water, between John’s legs, and along his belly and chest. The water sloshed and subsided. John laid his arms along Sherlock’s and didn’t try to hold him more closely, just yet.

“Okay?” John asked.

“Yes,” he said.

John picked up the large, soft bath sponge, soaked it in the water and gently began to run it over Sherlock’s arms.

Sherlock sighed and relaxed, and shifted his head to press his forehead and nose against John’s throat. “I like it when you bathe me.”

“I know you do, my little minnow.” John wiped the sponge over Sherlock’s chest and shoulders, over his throat. Over Sherlock’s hips and abdomen.

“What did you do to Eastmund?” Sherlock asked.

John took Sherlock’s hand out of the soapy water to kiss the knuckles, then folded both their arms over Sherlock’s chest.

“I don’t think there are words for how angry I was when I got that letter. You’d only been gone three months. I was still so raw, so…” John kissed Sherlock’s temple and didn’t continue with that train of thought. “So I decided to find out who’d done this – not just sent the photograph, but done that to you. I…” and now he laughed, self-deprecatingly, “I tried to apply your methods, to find the son of a bitch and teach him to never even _think_ your name again.”

“You… applied my methods?” Despite the circumstances, Sherlock drummed up a drily sceptical tone.

That brought a matching, self-deprecating huff of laughter from John. “Yeah. I was rubbish at it and it took me weeks, but I found the hotel. I found out who that girl was, and that she’d committed suicide in that same hotel room some years before. Sienna…”

“…Scott-Pasterlaine. I remember. I was in rehab when I read the news.” It had nearly sent him into a relapse, but the memory of what he had done, what he had been reduced to, kept him clean. _Never again, never again, never again._

“I met her brother, Leon, and between us we put the whole horrible thing together. Leon recognised Eastmund in the picture. The bastard had been known to Leon’s family. A friend, would you believe.” John sighed. “I went storming around to his country house to confront him, and that vile little fucker laughed in my face. He didn’t even bother denying it was all true, and he said charges would never stick, since you and Sienna were both dead. I had no other proof.” John looked straight into Sherlock’s eyes with an almost apologetic air. “So I broke his nose.”

“John,” Sherlock breathed, captivated.

“With a thirty thousand pound bronze and ceramic statuette.”

“Thirty thousand…?”

“It’s all right. It was solidly built. The blood washed right off it, I hear.”

“Oh. Good.” Sherlock’s mouth twitched up in a smile.

“And it wasn’t like it was _undue_ force. Self-defence, if anything. The fucker pulled a hunting rifle on me. You know, for a hunter, he had lousy aim.”

“ _John_.” Finally, Sherlock sounded horrified.

“It was fine, sweetpea. He actually shot up one of hi own vases worth another ten thousand pounds. The look on his face was _fantastic_ , but I left then, because he was reloading and I wasn’t keen on getting shot again. Not before I’d given him a few life lessons at any rate.”

This time it was Sherlock who raised John’s hand, and kissed the clenched knuckles, then the fingers and the open palm as John’s tension subsided again.

“Anyway,” said John, “I didn’t get the chance. Eastmund was shot dead that night in a botched burglary. With his own hunting rifle. The burglar got away with a computer and a back-up drive, his wallet and watch. A few other things.”

“Leon Scott-Pasterlaine.”

“Yeah. Only the police have never found out, either about my visit or Leon. He took off straight after on a back-packing trip around the world and as far as I know, he’s never come back. A month after he left, he sent me a postcard from Italy. Sienna. He just wrote ‘Thank you’ on it. I burned the card. It’s still an unsolved case, in case Lestrade ever offers it to you.” John sighed slightly. “I didn't mean for Leon to murder Eastmund, but I can't bring myself to mind. Well, except for the fact I would have cheerfully done it myself.”

For a little while after John finished telling the story, they simply lay together in the hot water, John lazily stroking Sherlock’s skin with the sponge in one hand, while Sherlock held John’s other hand next to his cheek.

Sherlock felt oddly content, despite the unwanted, ugly revelations. His John remained steadfast; and he had been Sherlock’s champion, even when he thought Sherlock was dead.

It turned out that to be so known and to be loved unconditionally through all that knowledge was a kind of...absolution.

 _Does John feel like that?_ Sherlock thought he might. 

He turned in John’s arms, sloshing water out of the tub, until he lay on his side, head pillowed on John’s chest. He cuddled close and kissed John’s neck.

John rubbed his hand down Sherlock’s wet back and kissed his forehead, but he was frowning.

“Milverton wasn’t trying to blackmail me with that picture, was he?”

“No,” said Sherlock. “If it was meant for blackmail, he would have sent it to me. If he knew about your role in Eastmund’s death, he would have sent you other things. A clipping about the burglary, probably.”

“He doesn’t know I already know about that photo,” said John. “Christ. The note on the back of it. That bastard was trying to drive us apart.”

“Yes.” Sherlock frowned at the memory of the note. _He sold to others what he denies to you as his husband. Do you still believe in Sherlock Holmes?_

“Well, it’s not going to happen,” asserted John, “That fuck-knuckle and his grubby note prove he doesn’t know you, or me, or who we are together. He’s one of those turd-brained arseholes who think you’re broken and that I need to change you; with their cockeyed ideas that I want anything you don’t want. He has no idea about love, or what we have, or that it and you are exactly what I want. Exactly as we are.”

Sherlock wanted to find words and, discovering there were none, simply kissed John’s throat and jaw and cheek. He shifted, sloshing water, to kiss John’s mouth, and John held him tight and kissed him back until, unexpectedly, John began to laugh.

“Hey, my honeybear. My beautiful water sprite. Merman of my heart. We are going to beat Charles Augustus Fucking Milverton, my honeyjoy, and do you know why?”

Sherlock knew why, but he only smiled against John’s wet skin. “Tell me.”

“He hasn’t got the first clue who he’s up against, sweetpea. It’s not just you and it’s not just me. It’s _us_. We’re a team, and that miserable bastard doesn’t understand that.”

“No. He doesn’t.” Sherlock kissed John’s chest again, then sighed. “I think I know another way to use that. With this… ally. Who also has a… team, I think.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes. But it means I have to go soon. Tomorrow, in fact. I’ll be away for a while. There’s nothing for it any more. This is where Milverton’s end begins.”

John frowned and held Sherlock tight for a moment. “Be careful.”

“If I can be.”

John sighed. “Same here.” Then he gave Sherlock a look of absolute determination and absolute faith. “We’ll get him.”

Sherlock knew that what was coming next would be the most dangerous part of this case, especially once Milverton realised his bid to destroy them had failed. Sherlock had contingency plans, of course he did, but should this ally prove courageous and trustworthy – the latter was by no means a given – there was every chance this would work.

Should she prove otherwise…

Well, he had a contingency plan for that too.

But he _had_ read her right, he was sure. Her and the other one. And he needed so little from them. A blind eye, for the most part. They’d go for it. It fit in with their own plans, he was sure, even though this potential ally had not gone so far as to admit to them. Sherlock knew what he saw, though, the planning and the determination. The hatred of Milverton. He also knew desperation when he saw it, because it was impossible to forget what it looked like. What it smelled like.

Yes. Aggie would help, and with her help, Milverton’s power over them, over all his victims, would be destroyed.

_We are coming for you Milverton. John and I are coming for you. We are going to destroy the spider in his own nest._

Sherlock cupped John’s jaw in his hand, and thought about what John had done for him, even when he thought Sherlock was dead. He thought about John wanting to burn that photograph and spare Sherlock the memory of it. He thought about John asking permission before even touching him in the aftermath of its revelation today; his pre-emptive reassurances; his complete care that Sherlock was all right and John’s complete truthfulness that who and what they were together was not only enough, but all that he wanted.

_Your sister was right. I said there were no heroes but I do believe in one. I believe in you, John Holmes-Watson. But if I tell you so, you'll deny it. That irritating, illogical modesty of yours will see to it._

Yet his eyes must have betrayed his thoughts, or at least that his thoughts were filled with adoration, because John's own expression grew warm and melting in response. He sank down in the water, pulling Sherlock's body along his own, to kiss his face all over before their mouths met in a long, languorous kiss that was of itself perfect and complete.


End file.
